


A Heart as Big as a Liver

by raphrodo



Category: Perfect Strangers
Genre: Homophobia in general, Internalized Homophobia, Warning for some child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27264544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphrodo/pseuds/raphrodo
Summary: Being an (eventually) complete biographical account of one Lawrence Gunther Appleton, beginning at the age of eight years.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. Third Grade: Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested Listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sySlY1XKlhM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Larry mentioning that he "didn't talk through the entire third grade" (Life Savers, S2 E4). I had selective mutism as a kid, so that's how I interpreted it.

“Larry, let’s stay on track with our work, okay?”

  
8-year-old Larry’s hand froze mid-doodle, his eyes growing wide. Within an instant Ms. Brafford, the gifted teacher, was crouched next to his desk.

  
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she assured him quietly. “I’m not mad — I was just reminding you. It’s okay.” Larry blinked a few times, then nodded to show he understood. Ms. Brafford smiled and stood up to continue her lesson.

  
Larry tried to stay focused. He liked school and he liked Ms. Brafford. But for the rest of class, all he could think about was how he had disappointed her. She’d said she wasn’t mad, but that’s what grownups always said when they regretted getting mad. She hadn’t raised her voice… but she didn’t have to. He’d done something bad, and he knew what that meant. It meant that from now on Ms. Brafford would like him a little bit less.

  
His eyes got blurry every few minutes, but he did not cry.

Recess was another story. Back in first and second grade, virtually everyone was friends with each other and they could all play tag or something. But this was third grade — it was a dog eat dog world out there. Oh, sure, he had friends — the other gifted and talented kids — but that wasn’t always enough to protect you.

  
“Hey, Larry!” Neil and Becky-Jo were both waving to him from the swingset. He fast-walked over to them. It was always a gamble whether or not you’d get a swing, and that was Larry’s favourite thing to do at recess. He could ignore all the other kids if he wanted to, just close his eyes and feel the wind in his face, swinging higher and higher. As he got closer to his friends, though, he realised they weren’t looking at the swings. They were looking at the ground under the nearby fence. Finally he caught up to them and risked a look — still aware that at any moment someone might steal his swing.

  
“Look, Larry!” said Becky-Jo. “Did you know we had flowers growing right here at school?” Larry looked. There, a little tangled in the chain fence, were six yellow daffodils, rays of sunshine against the grey of gravel. “There are enough for each of us to have two,” Becky-Jo pointed out.

  
“I’m gonna give one to my grandma and one to my sister,” said Neil, already yanking two of the flowers out of the ground.

  
“I’m gonna put them in a vase at home and practice drawing them,” said Becky-Jo.

“What will you do with them, Larry?”

“I’ll give one to my mom,” Larry said. He knew his mother loved flowers, and it was a good way to get her attention. He had too many sisters to think of them. “And I’ll keep one for myself.”

Neil laughed. “Flowers are for girls,” he cautioned Larry, shaking his head.

Larry frowned. “Nuh-uh. Flowers are just plants. They’re for everyone. And they’re so pretty.” He plucked one of the nodding daffodils and threaded its stem into his curly hair. His friends both seemed delighted, so he struck a few poses while they laughed and clapped. He loved the feeling that he was in control of when and why people laughed at him.

After a minute, though, Becky-Jo’s eyes widened and her mouth took a decidedly downward turn. “Uh-oh,” she said, and pointed over Larry’s shoulder. Larry turned just in time to see Mitch Ludlow and his cronies winding up behind him. Rumour had it that Mitch had repeated the third grade four times, and it was his bitterness about this that made him so mean. Larry let all expression vanish from his face, his eyes focusing in on a particular hole in the fence a few feet away.

“He’s doing it again,” he heard Neil whisper to Becky-Jo.

“Hey, what’s that you got in your hair, Laretta?” Mitch asked. He usually had a different feminisation of Larry’s name each day. The bigger kid’s eyes squinted a moment, then his eyebrows shot up in happy surprise. “Hey, fellas, he’s actually got a flower in his hair!” He and his friends laughed the sharp, barking laugh of bullies whose victims have played right into their traps. “Oh man,” Mitch finally said, wiping a pretend tear from his eye. “This is too much. You really are a faggot, aren’t you? Is the flower from your boyfriend?”

Larry closed his eyes, but otherwise had not moved a muscle. Faggot… he had looked the word up in a dictionary once when no one was looking. The definition had said, “a bundle of sticks, twigs, or branches bound together and used esp. as fuel.” This made absolutely no sense to him. He knew kids like Mitch weren’t calling him a bundle of twigs. It was more like calling him “sissy,” but somehow much worse. That was when he realised that words were tools you could sharpen into whatever shape you wanted… including weapons.

_“Hey, Mitch, I sure hope your operation goes well,” Larry said._

_“_ _Huh?” Mitch frowned. “What operation?”_

_“I heard they’re finally going to put a brain in.”_

_Neil and Becky-Jo laughed riotously, and even Mitch’s henchmen let loose a few shocked giggles. Mitch glared and waved a fist in Larry’s face. “You think I’m messing with you, Appleton? I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I oughta do to you.”_

_“You had a good idea?” Larry asked in mock surprise. “Probably just beginner’s luck.” A small crowd of kids was gathering around them now, laughing nervously, anxious to see who would be victorious._

_“That’s it, Laretta, you little pansy pipsqueak, I’m gonna—”_

_“Laretta, is that the best you can do?” Larry challenged. “This from a kid whose name rhymes with bitch?” Gasps from the still-growing crowd. That was a real swear word. Larry had recently learned it from his Aunt Donna. “They should call you Artie… because I hope you choke!”_

_Thunderous applause. The entire playground began cheering: “Lar-ry! Lar-ry! Lar-ry!” He found himself being lifted over their heads. Flower petals were thrown into the air in celebration — and very pretty they were, too. Even the yard teacher was chanting his name. Mitch was left rocking back and forth on the ground, crying and shaking his head like a big baby. The principal came out and gave Larry a medal and ice cream for lunch every day. Ms. Brafford stood next to him, beaming, and leaned over to plant a red-lipsticked kiss on Larry’s cheek. “I am so proud of you, sweetie,” she said. “I’m going to call your parents and tell them to take you to Disneyland right now!”_

“Hello? Earth to Appleton?” Mitch was shaking him by the shoulder, smirking. “I swear to God… how come they put this kid in the genius class when he can’t even talk?”

“He can talk,” Becky-Jo insisted. “I’ve heard him talk.”

“Yeah, right. What did he say, that he wet his pants?”

“He’s smart,” Becky-Jo said. “And he doesn’t wet his pants.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mitch said. “Then what’s this?” On the last word, he flung his open milk carton at the front of Larry’s pants. It splashed all over him and then trickled steadily to the ground. He still did not move. Mitch laughed. “What a weirdo.” He snatched the daffodil from Larry’s hair, threw it to the ground, stomped on it a few times, and left with his friends.

At the end of the day, after getting out of a rather exhausting meeting with the third and fourth grade teachers, Ms. Brafford went back to her desk to find a muddy, trampled daffodil with a note taped to it that said:

Miss Brafford,  
You are my favorite teacher.  
Love,  
Larry Appleton

  
“Mommy, we’re home!” Billy shouted as he violently flung the front door open. It was his way of making a big show out of winning the race back from the bus stop. Larry shuffled in behind him, out of breath, side by side with 5-year-old Danny. The milk on Larry’s pants had mostly dried, but left an enormous and rather noticeable spot. He had tried tying his jacket around his waist so that it hung down in the front, but then someone on the bus had pointed out that it looked like a skirt. Since he was still clutching the other daffodil for his mother, he’d decided not to tempt fate too much — all too often the things bullies told him at school were echoed later in the day, too.

“Hi, boys!” their mother called cheerfully from the kitchen. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“We got to plant seeds!” Billy told her triumphantly.

“Well, that sounds like fun!” she said.

“We learned the letter D today, and that’s my letter!” Danny piped up.

“Wow! You are so lucky, Danny!” She walked out from behind the counter where she had been preparing their after-school snacks. “What about you, La— Larry!!” Larry felt himself wince. He braced himself for her to be upset about his pants. It was just his luck that he wouldn’t get even a moment’s peace in his own home today. _Oh, well,_ he thought. _Might as well get this part over with before Dad gets home._

“What a pretty flower!” his mother said instead.

Larry’s face lit up. He stepped forward and held the flower out to her.

“Is that for me?” she asked. He nodded. “Thank you so much, Larry! This is beautiful.” She searched around for something to put it in, then finally selected a tall glass and filled it partway with water. She placed it, with the flower, on the kitchen windowsill over the sink. “Now I can look at it while I wash the dishes tonight… it’ll make my chores seem a lot more pleasant.” She leaned over and put her arms around him. “I love it,” she said softly.

Larry hugged his mother tightly. He always looked forward to having time with her when his father wasn’t around. Walter Appleton was a tough guy who criticised what he saw as his wife’s “emotional pampering” of their oldest son. He blamed her in large part for Larry’s delicate nature, which he saw as a major flaw. Billy, on the other hand, was Walter’s pride and joy. He was only seven, but already tall, athletic, outgoing, outdoorsy, and all in all a “boy’s boy” — everything Larry wasn’t. On the other hand, as Larry sometimes comforted himself by remembering, Billy struggled more with things like reading and math than Larry ever had.

“Hey, Mommy, can we go to a movie tonight?” Billy asked suddenly as the hug ended. He was already eating his snack of celery with peanut butter and raisins. He was staring at Larry in a way that made him feel strange. He sometimes wondered if Billy was ever jealous of him getting their mother’s attention the way he was jealous of Billy with their father. But he didn’t see why he should — their mother was a generally warm and affectionate woman, toward all of her children.

“Oh, sorry, Billy. Daddy and I won’t be home this evening, so Aunt Donna is going to babysit. Maybe she can take you, if you ask VERY nicely.”

“Where are you going?” Danny asked, startled.

“We have to go talk to Larry’s teachers. It’s his parent-teacher conference night, remember?” she explained.

Larry froze. He had completely forgotten about parent-teacher conferences. Oh, this was a disaster. This was the worst of all possible days.

“And that means Daddy’s going to get home from work early today, so we can go down to the school together,” their mother continued. Larry was vaguely conscious of her saying something about a family announcement, but his mind was already racing miles ahead.

_Maybe I can just run away, he thought. I’ve thought about it a hundred times, so why not? I could live in the park like I’ve always secretly dreamed of…_

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of baby Elaine howling in the next room. “Oh! Sorry, baby!” came the voice of three-year-old Nancy.

Larry immediately moved for the living room. Since the day she was born, Larry had felt a protective instinct toward his baby sister, and Nancy was always knocking her over or hitting her over the head with a toy. “That’s okay, Larry,” his mother said, grabbing him by the shirt sleeve. “I’ll take care of Elaine. Why don’t you just go change your pants before your father gets home?”

  
Larry flinched as they stepped back into the school building. He had been secretly hoping some kind of natural disaster would strike before they got there, and he wouldn’t have to go through with parent-teacher conferences. But, tragically, they had avoided disaster. Now it was really happening.

“Lawrence, I don’t want this to be like last time. You’re not going to embarrass your mother and me in front of your teachers, are you?” Larry kept his eyes on the floor tiles, trying to let his father’s voice simply become background noise to his own anxieties. This attempt was ruined by his father roughly grabbing him by the arm just below his right shoulder. “Do you hear me, son?”

“Yes, Daddy.” They were the first words he’d spoken since lunch.

“Don’t be so hard on him, Walter,” his mother chided. “He wasn’t trying to embarrass us last time. And he does very well in school. I’m sure everything will be just fine. Won’t it, sweetie?”  
Larry nodded glumly. It was a lie. Everything would not be just fine, and he knew it. He knew just what was coming.

And he was right. His regular teacher, Mrs. Martin, proudly asked him to read aloud for his parents, and he cried instead. His music teacher told his parents he had a beautiful singing voice, and his father laughed and said, “If only we could ever hear his beautiful speaking voice,” and Larry felt like crying again but didn’t. His gym teacher said Larry’s movements were “a little stiff” and that he should try doing more stretches at home. His art teacher told them that he had “a great eye” and that she thought he could really benefit from artistic forms of expression, and just when Larry was starting to feel a little better he caught his father rolling his eyes.

Finally, they were at their last stop: Ms. Brafford’s room. Flashbacks to earlier that same afternoon plagued Larry. What if she thought he only gave her the flower to kiss up in time for parent-teacher conferences? Especially after what happened in class… but at least she probably wouldn’t mention it.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Appleton,” Ms. Brafford said, running a hand through her auburn hair. “Hello, Larry! I really appreciated the beautiful flower you gave me this afternoon.” She gestured toward her desk, where the sorry, bedraggled thing was leaning painfully in a small blue vase. Larry nearly blacked out.

  
That night in their room, Billy was energetically regaling Larry with tales of second grade. “And then Mrs. Eriksen said if our class reads enough books, we get to have root beer floats next Friday! And that’s the week I get to help pass out papers, too! And at recess today we played kickball and Stu Morgano kicked the ball so hard it flew all the way—”

“Ssshh!” Larry cautioned. “I’m trying to hear what Mommy and Daddy are saying.” He had his ear pressed up against the wall. Larry and Billy’s room was right next to their parents’, which could be a blessing and a curse. One thing it did was give the boys front-row tickets every time the grown-ups argued, which was what seemed to be happening now.

“Are they fighting again?” Billy asked.

“Yeah,” Larry told him. “I think I heard my name.”

“Maybe it’s about that time you saved up your allowance for two months and then spent it all on gum and chewed all of it at once and it got stuck in your hair and Daddy wanted to shave your head but Mommy said—”

“Ssssshhhh!” Larry clamped both hands over his brother’s mouth and pressed his ear even tighter against the wall. The voices were muffled, but he could hear most of the words now.

“—picking daisies when he should be out playing ball! If you don’t want our son to turn out to be a sissy, you’re going to have to stop mothering him so much,” their father was saying.

“Stop mothering him? I am his mother, Walter!”

“You know what I mean. He’s eight years old — the oldest — and you treat him like a baby.”

“How I treat him has nothing to do with age. You and I both know Larry has some emotional problems. When was the last time you heard him say more than a sentence at a time?”

“He has emotional problems because you still rocked him to sleep until about a month ago! That’s not normal, Lois. You don’t do this with William, and guess what? He’s normal! You know what happen to boys like Lawrence, boys who spend too much time with their mothers? Pretty soon they start wearing dresses and putting on lipstick!”

“Walter, you’re being ridiculous! Just because—”

Larry had heard enough. He moved away from the wall, his eyes wide with fear. How had his dad found out that he’d snuck into Grandma Rose’s makeup last weekend? He’d only done it to make himself look like a monster to scare Danny while he and Billy were telling him scary stories. He knew it was bad to steal, but he’d been careful not to make a mess and he didn’t think Grandma had noticed.

“Are you gonna get in trouble, Larry?” Billy asked.

Larry rubbed his cheek, remembering the last time Daddy had been really angry. “Let’s pretend we’re asleep,” he whispered. “In case they come in here.”

Lois had finally managed to calm her husband down when she realised they’d forgotten to tell the kids the big news. She tiptoed into Larry and Billy’s room to find them sound asleep with the light still on. She felt a stirring of regret. She wished the happy family moments didn’t always have to be postponed in favour of arguments. As she turned out the light, she paused and said softly to her sleeping little boys, “You’re going to have a new baby brother or sister soon.” She closed the door behind her. The real announcement would have to wait until tomorrow. She wondered if somehow her saying it while they slept would cause them to dream about the baby. The thought amused her as she went to bed, facing away from her husband.

As soon as she was gone, Larry and Billy both bolted upright in their beds. “Another one?!” Billy cried, and Larry said, “Sssshhhh!”


	2. Fifth Grade: Anticipation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Larry's story about his fifth-grade girlfriend Carolyn Schmeiser (That Old Gang of Mine, S4 E11).  
> Heads up as there is a brief instance of spanking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested Listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVQuHF7lQBI

“Who’s Carolyn?” Danny asked, peeking over Larry’s shoulder. Larry quickly slammed his notebook shut.

“Nobody,” he said. “Now get out of my room.”

“It’s not just your room, it’s Billy’s room, too!” Danny reminded him — as if he ever needed reminding. “And Billy said I could come in here and get his baseball.”

“Well then get the goddamn ball and get out of here!” Larry growled.

“You’re not allowed to swear.” Danny frowned. “Mom says it makes God sad when you swear.”

“It’ll make God even sadder when I kill you for not getting out of my room,” Larry told him, and Danny snatched up the baseball and ran out. Larry waited a couple minutes for good measure, then went back to his doodling.

Carolyn Schmeiser was, in fact, not nobody. She was the cutest, smartest, nicest, and tallest girl in the entire fifth grade. Larry scrunched his eyes shut and pictured her, with her wavy brown hair that fell halfway down her back and her pretty green eyes. In moments of weakness, he might admit that he hadn’t paid much attention to her until he heard Dewey Karp say she was pretty. He’d observed her for a day or two. She was pretty. And then this morning she had told Trudy Ashworth who told Maggie-Lynn Caldwell who told Holly Johns who told Georgie Fagan who told Kenny Bluehorn who told Larry that she liked him. The word had only reached him on the way home from school, so he hadn’t had a chance to verify Carolyn’s feelings. But he had it on pretty good authority.

He could hardly believe it… a girl actually liked him! Again, admittedly, it wasn’t something he’d given a lot of thought to until recently, but give him a break, he was only ten. This put him leagues ahead of Neil, who may have been more successful than him in the lemonade stand business two years ago (the jerk!) but had yet to catch the eye of any of the girls at school. And the best part was that Carolyn was actually cool. Her family was rich, and she took fencing lessons — fencing lessons! — at the local college campus when she wasn’t in school. Yep. She was more or less perfect. He wondered what was the polite period of time to wait before asking her to marry him.

“Larry!” Nancy’s voice came through the bedroom door. “Daddy says you have to go practice baseball now!”

Larry sighed. “I don’t wanna play!”

There was a minute’s pause. Then Nancy again. “Daddy says ‘Too bad, so sad!’”

He groaned, dragged a hand across his face, and reluctantly left his daydreaming for later.

  
It was nine o’clock at night — bedtime — when the phone rang. Larry was brushing his teeth for the second time in a row. After a moment, he heard his mother’s voice. “Larry? There’s someone on the phone for you.”  
Larry blinked, toothbrush still shoved into his mouth. The phone? For him? At bedtime? “Whmm mms mmt?” he asked.

“It’s a classmate of yours. Carolyn Schmeiser.”

In the blink of an eye, Larry had spit out his toothpaste, dashed into the living room in his pajamas, and snatched the phone out of his mother’s hand. “Hi,” he said, “Carolyn?”

“Hi, is this Larry?”

“Yeah. Uh, how did you know my phone number?”

“I looked it up in the phone book,” Carolyn laughed.

“Oh,” Larry said. “Right.” There was an awkward pause. “So did you want something?”

“Um,” said Carolyn. Larry thought he heard girls giggling and talking in the background. He anxiously waited for Carolyn to continue. “Um,” she said again, then took a deep breath and proceeded to spit it out with remarkable speed: “I just wanted to say that I think you’re cute and I have a crush on you goodbye.” And she hung up.

Larry was momentarily dazed. Things were moving along much faster than he ever could have hoped. Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait long at all to propose. Finally, he remembered himself and placed the phone back on the receiver.

“What was your friend calling for, Larry?” his mother asked. She seemed to be biting back a grin, like she already knew the answer.

He thought about lying, but didn’t see the point. He wasn’t the type to lie, anyway. But he was suddenly embarrassed. He felt around for a notepad and pencil — an old habit from when he was younger and didn’t talk. He quickly scrawled down a message for his mother’s eyes only: Carolyn likes me (as in LIKES me)! He then folded the note in half, passed it to his mom, said goodnight before she opened it, and marched himself off to bed.

He knew there was no way he’d be getting much sleep tonight. He was too excited. What did this mean, he wondered. Was Carolyn now his girlfriend? Would she come to his baseball games? Would he go to her fencing, uh, games? What was it called when you did fencing, anyway? Whatever. That didn’t matter. If they got married, she would be Carolyn Appleton. Not really the best ring to it, he thought, but maybe there was a way around that. Maybe she could be Carolyn Schmeiser-Appleton. That was a little better. It was with this thought that he did in fact drift off to sleep.

  
“Why don’t you ever invite me over to your house?”

“Huh?” Larry said. He was still not used to holding hands with a girl and was feeling a little overwhelmed. Carolyn liked to walk along the edge of the curb while he walked her home from school, and Larry walked along the side of the road, even though she was already eleven inches taller than him. Once, early in their relationship (two weeks ago), a sixth-grader named Stephen McMurray had said they looked like a scarecrow and a field mouse had run off together. Larry had been deeply offended, but Carolyn had just said, “Well, if I’m a scarecrow, then you’re a crow, so scram!” She was amazing.

“I just wanted to know why you never invite me over to your house,” Carolyn repeated down to him. “I mean, you’ve been to my house three times already. How come I’ve never been to yours?”  
Larry felt his face go a bit pink. There was, of course, a reason why he hadn’t invited Carolyn over. Actually, there were two. And at least one of them he wasn’t ready to admit. He decided to come clean about the other one. “You know how I have two brothers and a sister who walk home ahead of us?” he said.

“Yeah. Billy, Manny, and Nancy. You have a big family.”

“Danny,” Larry corrected. “And, well, yeah. I do have a big family. Bigger than that, even. I have three more siblings at home.”

Carolyn stared for a moment, and Larry flinched. He had never been embarrassed before about having a lot of brothers and sisters, but Carolyn was an only child, and he was uncomfortable with how different that made him feel. “You mean there are seven of you?” she said incredulously.

Larry nodded slowly. “Me, Billy, Danny, Nancy, Elaine, Mikey, and Joey. Joey’s only a month old.”

“That’s so neat!” Carolyn said. “You are sooo lucky!”

This was not the reaction he had expected. “I am?”

“Of course! I’ve always wished I had a bunch of siblings!” Carolyn grinned and swung her arm wide so that Larry’s moved with her. It was a little beyond his reach, and he stumbled slightly, but pretended it had been on purpose.

“Do you think I could come over today? I really want to meet all your brothers and sisters!”

Larry felt panic setting in. So maybe Carolyn thought his huge family was “neat.” Maybe she’d enjoy playing boring, repetitive games with babies and shouting over everyone just to make herself heard. But there was no way she’d enjoy watching him take criticism after criticism from his dad. He could just imagine the sorts of things his father would say if he brought his girlfriend to the house. It would be a nightmare. And yet… if he said no, what would Carolyn say? She obviously had her heart set on it. Would she break up with him?

“Sure,” he said. “I don’t think my mother would mind.” I’ll just be sure to walk her home before Dad gets in from work, he told himself. Everything will be perfectly fine.

  
Everything had been perfectly fine. Larry’s mother had been delighted to meet Carolyn, who she thought was a very charming and polite young lady. Carolyn had been enthusiastic to play with the little kids, who yarded out toy after toy and book after book to show off to her. Larry couldn’t help but roll his eyes a little when Nancy suggested they have a tea party with her dolls and teddy bears and Carolyn had insisted he join in. But then again, it was secretly kind of nice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really paid his five-year-old sister much attention, and she was obviously thrilled by it. And Carolyn seemed right at home here. Maybe it was meant to be.

“Larry, could you come out here for just a minute, please?” his mother called.

Larry frowned slightly. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said. Nancy cleared her throat and inclined her head toward the teddy bears. “Oh, sorry. Ladies and bears. I’ll just be a moment.” He stood up and trotted into kitchen where his mother stood waiting. She gave him a strange look briefly, and he realised he hadn’t bothered to remove the conical princess hat and veil Nancy had strapped under his chin. Oh, well.

“Did you want something, Mom?”

She was, at this point, obviously trying not to laugh. “I just wondered if your friend was going to be joining us for dinner,” she said, and then she couldn’t hold back the laugh any longer. “Oh, Larry, you look ridiculous.”

“I beg your pardon?” Larry said in mock disdain. “Is that any way to speak to royalty?”

Just then, they heard a loud clattering from the girls’ room. “Elaine, no!” Nancy’s voice cried out. Larry glanced at his mother and then bolted for the hallway.

“Wait, Larry! You didn’t answer my question!” she called.

“Hang on a second, Mom!” he called back, and ducked into Nancy and Elaine’s bedroom. The tea party had been strewn all over the floor, and Elaine stood in the middle of it. Most of the pieces were still intact, though… except for the teacup a whimpering Nancy held in two pieces in her hands, its handle snapped off.

“It’s okay, Larry, I can handle cleaning this up,” Carolyn assured him.

“Thank you,” he said. “Elaine? Come here.” He scooped her up under his arm. She was pretty heavy nowadays, and he had to keep adjusting her weight on his knee in order to keep walking without dropping her. Finally, he plopped her down on the living room couch. “Why did you break Nancy’s teacup?” he asked as calmly as possible.

“I breaked it,” Elaine said simply.

“I know,” Larry said. “Why did you break it?”

“She broke something?” Their mother appeared in the doorway.

“Yes. Again,” Larry told her.

“Elaine, that was not nice of you,” their mother said in a foreboding tone. “We’re going to have to tell Daddy when he gets home.”

That did it. Suddenly Elaine was screaming and flailing her tiny body around. “No! No! We won’t tell Daddy!” she shrieked. Larry did his best to hold her down so she wouldn’t break anything else. It was then that their father came in the front door.

“What the hell is going on here?” he boomed.

“Walter, please. Language.”

“Why is Lawrence tormenting his sister and dressed like a girl?”

“He’s not tormenting her, he’s just—”

“Lawrence! Get yourself over here right this minute!”

Larry hung his head and shuffled over to his irate father. He knew he couldn’t make his case, because that would be considered talking back. He was vaguely aware of his mother trying to explain the situation, but he knew that it would be no use.

“Walter, wait. He has a friend here today…”

It was already too late for her protests. Larry closed his eyes as he found himself pulled across his father’s knee.

He closed them tighter as he felt the first blow across his backside. It wasn’t very hard. He wasn’t being physically hurt, not enough to count anyway. It was the humiliation that stung.

After two more hits, everything seemed to freeze. Larry risked opening one eye to see Carolyn standing shocked on the other end of the living room. “I should go,” she said, and immediately ran from the house.

“I tried to tell you…” Larry’s mother started in. He didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the inevitable argument. He took his father’s stunned hesitation as an opportunity to bolt out the front door after Carolyn.

It took a while for him to catch up to her — her legs were much longer than his and she’d had a head start. When he did catch up to her, they were in front of her house on the next street over. The streetlights would be coming on soon, and Carolyn’s skin glowed in the setting sun. She looked really cool, he thought in spite of everything. He wasn’t the most athletic kid and he was struggling to catch his breath. Worse than that, he could feel tears starting to prick his eyes. He wasn’t even sure why he’d followed her out here or what to say now that he had. He just didn’t want her to leave.

They stood there staring at each other for a moment before Carolyn finally disrupted the sound of his ragged breathing. “Oh, Larry,” she said, and pulled her to him in a warm hug. The tears were really coming now — for both of them. For a minute they just let them come.

“You’re not going to dump me now, are you?” Larry muttered over her shoulder.

“Dump you?” Carolyn pulled back to look at him. She sniffled, then laughed softly. “Why on earth would I dump you? I really like you.”

Larry couldn’t help but smile a little, but he quickly looked down at the asphalt beneath their feet. “I don’t see why you’d like a guy like me,” he said. “I’m not good at sports. I’m not tall. I’m not popular in school. And after today…”

“My mom says everybody is the greatest to somebody,” she interrupted him. “I don’t care about any of that other stuff. I can like whoever I want. You’re the greatest to me, Larry Appleton.”

It was then that the strangest thing happened. Carolyn’s face got awfully close to his. Her eyes fluttered shut and she puckered her mouth slightly. She was trying to kiss him. This could be his first kiss… he would finally become a man. And yet, without thinking, he took a step back.

“Hey, Carolyn?” he said, though he could have kicked himself for it. “I really like you, too. But I can’t kiss you.”

Carolyn’s eyes fluttered back open. “Oh,” she said. “That’s okay. But why not?”

“Um,” Larry said, trying to concentrate. “I’m not allowed to kiss until I’m thirteen.”

“Oh,” Carolyn said again. “Okay. But we can hug, right?”

“Yes,” said Larry, relieved. He held his arms out. This time the hug lasted a very long time. He knew it was because she was still trying to comfort him. He didn’t mind — he liked the feeling that someone wanted to comfort him.

But his mind was still trying to work out what had happened with the whole kissing thing.

Finally, they both let go. “Goodnight, Larry,” Carolyn said, and quickly disappeared into her huge, brightly lit home.

“Goodnight, Carolyn,” Larry said quietly. He turned around and walked home just as the streetlights were coming on.

  
Later that night, there was a knock on Larry’s bedroom door. “Hey, son,” came his father’s voice. “Can we have a little talk?”

Larry allowed his dad to enter the room, but said nothing. This was the last person he wanted to talk to at the moment.

“I wanted to apologise, Lawrence. Your mother explained what you were really doing when I came home today. I should have listened at the time, but… I don’t know. I lost my temper too quickly. I had a very difficult day at work today, and…” he shook his head. “But that’s no excuse. That had nothing to do with you. I really am very sorry.”

There was silence for a moment. Larry had yet to even look up at him. So his father went on. “I certainly would never have done something like that if I had realised you had a girl here. I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.” He chuckled to himself. “What’s her name again?”

Larry was suddenly enraged. He wanted his father to leave, and he would do whatever it took to get him out. “Carolyn,” he said shortly.

Fortunately, his dad took the hint from his tone of voice. “Anyway,” he said. “I hope you’ll forgive me for what happened tonight, Lawrence.”

“I forgive you,” Larry said.

“Good,” his father said. “Well, uh… good talking to you, son. I’ll leave you alone now.” He left the room far too slowly for Larry’s liking, but eventually he was in fact gone.

Larry flopped angrily down on his bed. He couldn’t even quite put his finger on what had made him this angry. It was something to do with a sense he had that he could only redeem himself in his father’s eyes if he had a girlfriend. Of course, he did have a girlfriend, so that shouldn’t have been a problem. It was just… what would his dad have thought if he’d seen him turn down his first kiss from a girl? Would he be less sorry? Would he care about him less?

And why had he turned her down? Maybe he was still too young, like he’d said, although the thirteen rule had been made up. He was only almost eleven. But Carolyn was the same age as him, and she hadn’t seemed to think they were too young. He tried to imagine kissing her. He had to admit it… the thought slightly grossed him out. Well… guess I’ll have to try again when I’m thirteen, he thought as he fell asleep. He knew Carolyn would wait for him.

  
“Larry, listen to me. Remember when you were afraid to tell me about your family because you thought I would dump you? But I didn’t? Well, this is like that. It’s not going to change anything.”

“Not going to change anything?” Larry cried. “You’re moving to Texas! That’s almost another country!” They were walking around the perimeter of the playground at recess like they usually did, occasionally dodging runaway kickballs.

“I know it seems far away, but—”

“Seems far away? It IS far away! About twelve hundred miles away!”

“I know,” Carolyn said, her eyes shining but overall maintaining her composure much better than Larry was.

“You’re right. It is far. But it’s okay! I talked to my parents about it. They said we can come back to Madison to visit every summer, and you and I can write letters while we’re in school. I’ll write you every week. Every day if you want.”

They were on the blacktop, and Larry’s feet became momentarily tangled up in someone’s abandoned jump rope. Once he’d freed himself, he chucked it aside in frustration. “I don’t know, Carolyn,” he said. “What if you forget? Or what if your parents change their minds and you don’t come to visit?”

“I won’t forget. And they won’t change their minds. I promise.”

Larry sighed. He wanted to believe her. He trusted her. But… he knew you couldn’t really promise for other people, and you couldn’t promise not to do something by accident. “Well, we’ll miss each other’s birthdays,” he said. “Neither of us have summer birthdays. I’m spring and you’re fall.”

“Well, at least you already had your birthday this year,” she said. “And you can send me a card in the mail.”

At some point they had stopped walking. Larry turned to face Carolyn. “I’m really, really, really going to miss you,” he said. He was sort of amazed at himself for not crying yet. He sure felt like crying.

“I won’t have to miss you, Larry,” she said. “Because we’ll always be together.”

  
The crying started once he got home from school. Everyone asked him what was wrong — even his dad — but he didn’t want to talk about it. No one knew until Larry’s mother came back from running errands and said, “Is that a moving van in front of the Schmeisers’ house? Larry, shouldn’t you go over and say goodbye?” And the crying started all over again.

Things got better for a few months, though. Carolyn wrote twice a week, and Larry lived in constant excitement of getting one of her letters in the mail. Once school started up again, though, she could only find time to write once a week. And since where she was now sixth grade started middle school, she had clubs and parties and things to go to. The letters grew more and more spaced out, until just a few weeks before Larry’s twelfth birthday. Then they completely stopped.

He tried to keep his disappointment and hurt locked up. But when he brought home a spelling test with “80%” written on it, his mother knew something was seriously wrong. She decided to act before someone else did.

“Larry, I think it’s time for you to find a hobby,” she told him.

Larry looked up from his homework at the dining room table. He hadn’t really been doing it, just moving his pencil around to make it look like he was. “A hobby?” he asked blankly.

“Yes,” his mother said. “You’re about to turn twelve, and I think that’s just the right age for you to find something just for you to do. You know how Uncle Bill makes those model airplanes? And Aunt Miriam has her jigsaw puzzles.”

“And like how Uncle Pete goes to the casino all the time?” Larry said.

His mother’s face looked suddenly pinched. “Well… that’s probably not the best example,” she told him. “Anyway. Don’t you think it would be fun to have a hobby that’s just for you? Hobbies are one of the things that help make people unique. I know it’s tough sometimes having so many brothers and sisters. But a hobby could make you stand out more.”

Larry perked up a bit at that, but he was still suspicious. “I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t know if I would have time to do a hobby. I have all this homework.”

“And all this moping around over Carolyn Schmeiser?” She folded her arms.

Larry gave an involuntary gasp. “I’m not moping,” he insisted weakly.

“Larry, I know this is painful for you. But that’s why you need something to take your mind off it. That’s the only way you’re going to feel better.”

He frowned, thinking it over. He didn’t want to just forget about Carolyn. But he did want to feel better. “I don’t like model airplanes,” he said. “Or jigsaw puzzles.”

“You don’t have to do either of those things,” his mother assured him. “There are lots of hobbies you could take up.”

“Like what?” Larry had dropped all pretense of doing any homework for now and was sitting literally on the edge of his seat.

“Oh, like… hiking… guitar playing… photography… stamp collecting…”

“Whoa!” Larry cried, jumping up out of his chair. “Could I really do that?”

“Stamp collecting? Sure, we could look for some—”

“Mom, no. Not stamp collecting. That would be so lame. I’m talking about photography! I mean, could I have my own camera and everything?”

His mother smiled. It was amazing how quickly his mood had changed already. “Well… your birthday is coming right up. Why don’t we wait and see?”


	3. Ninth Grade: Take It to the Limit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larry's starting high school, and it's time to re-evaluate some friendships.  
> Heads up for some mild teen sexuality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested Listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcZx3g0EEOk

“Smile!” Larry called as he snapped yet another photo.

“Larry, oh my god!” Becky-Jo cried, squinting at the flash bulb. “You are so obnoxious with that camera. Put it away, we’re gonna have to get to class soon.”

“No way,” Larry said. “We’re finally in high school, Beck! I have to document this very carefully.”

“I don’t want a thousand and one pictures of me to end up in your scrapbook, Appleton. That’s a little weird.”

“You think he’s taking photos of you?” their friend Tony piped up. “I’m clearly the star here.”

“That’s even weirder,” Becky-Jo said, wrinkling her nose and tossing blonde braid over her shoulder.

“You’re just jealous that I get to be an artist’s muse and you don’t,” Tony teased.

“Perfect, you two, hold those scowls!” Larry said with a straight face, still looking at everything through his camera lens. A bell sounded just in time to drown out the click of the shutter.

“Come on, you two morons. We’re going to be late. You don’t want to have to take a photo of us all in detention, do you, Larry?” Becky-Jo adjusted her bag over her shoulder and flounced off down the hall. Larry and Tony looked at each other, shrugged, and followed in her direction.

Tony was in a different homeroom, but Larry and Becky-Jo both had Mr. Limburg, a slightly lisping young man with a waxed moustache. The seating was arranged alphabetically by last name, though, and A and Q were nowhere near each other, so they immediately resorted to passing notes.

_Uh-oh. Look who’s in homeroom with us (3 seats to your right)._

_I can’t see with this giant football guy in my way. Don’t tell me… David Cassidy._

_Nope. Ice Cream Neil._

_Are you f—-ing serious?_

_Five bucks says he hands each of us a business card on our way out._

_I wouldn’t bet against that. Can’t believe we used to be friends with that guy._

_How long is homeroom anyway? I’m so bored._

_Rebecca Josephine Quinn, bored? Don’t you have some boy to drool over by now?_

_My name’s not Rebecca and you know it. And no, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m spending the whole time writing notes to you. And you’re gross._

_Don’t worry. I’ll find you a man._

_Now that you have one for yourself (Tony)._

_Hahaha. Yeah, right._

The bell finally rang for first period. Neil raced to the doorway so he could hand out business cards to everyone as they left. Becky-Jo rolled her eyes at Larry and made a gagging gesture, and Larry discreetly took a picture of her like that. He knew he was acting like a freshman stereotype — the eager beaver. But he couldn’t help it. He was excited to finally be starting high school. It felt like he was finally on his way to really growing up.

“First class we have together is English,” he said, inching away from her as he put his camera away in its little shoulder bag. “I’ll see you then, Rebecca.” She stuck her tongue out at him and headed down the hall in the opposite direction.

“Appleton!” A familiar voice called. It was Tony’s. The tall, lanky boy sprinted over to where Larry was walking. “I’m ready for my close-up,” he grinned.

“Unfortunately, the close-up isn’t ready for you, Novello. I gotta get to Spanish.”

“Aw, man.” Tony pouted. “I wish you were the type to cut class. We don’t have anything together.”

“We would if you’d join chorus,” Larry reminded him.

“Yeah, no thanks. I’m not the canary type.”

“So you want me to change for you, but you won’t change for me. Typical man.”

Tony laughed and shoved Larry gently with an elbow. “Okay, good point. I’ll have to give that one to my secretary.” They’d come to a stop in front of the Spanish room. “Maybe we’ll at least have lunch together, right?”

“Right. See ya, Tony.”

  
During the first week of classes, you were allowed to rearrange your schedule a bit. Larry and Becky-Jo had both meticulously planned theirs in advance, so they had no reason to change. Tony seemed ambivalent to school in general. But Becky-Jo seemed to know something. One lunch period they had together where Tony was still in class, she pulled Larry aside and whispered to him, “There’s something you should know about Tony.”

Larry wasn’t sure why, but his stomach sank. Maybe Tony did something really bad. Or maybe he was moving, like… like others had in the past. “What is it?” he asked. “And why are we whispering? He’s not even here.”

Becky-Jo scowled at him, as if he were being unreasonable. “He told me he’s joining chorus.”

Larry couldn’t help but smirk a little. “That’s it? I told him to join. All that means is he’s finally taking some of my advice.”

“Larry Appleton, please tell me you’re not that stupid.” She rolled her eyes dramatically.

Now he was genuinely confused. “How stupid?” he asked. “What are you talking about? Why else would he join?”

She looked directly into his eyes for a moment. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least. “You really don’t suspect a thing, do you?” she asked him finally.

This was starting to get on Larry’s nerves. “What the hell are you talking about, Beck? What do you think, Tony’s some kind of terrorist or something? Is this because he’s Italian?”

She sat up suddenly and stared straight ahead, as if she’d just had an epiphany of some kind. “Never mind. You’re right. This is really stupid. I’ll bet it’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?” Larry demanded.

“No, no. Let’s forget about it. Please,” Becky-Jo said. “Are you eating your carrots?” And that was that.

  
Becky-Jo was right about one thing. Tony did join chorus. He wasn’t much of a singer, but neither were about half the kids in the class. And like many boys who weren’t great at singing, he was placed in the bass section. Whether he was truly a bass or not, to be honest, was anyone’s guess. As it happened, Larry stood directly in front of him, in the tiny tenor section.

It was only about fifteen minutes into class when Larry felt Tony’s index fingers jab into his sides. “Ah!” he cried out, trying to muffle himself with his hand. “What?” he whispered sharply, though he didn’t really mind Tony’s antics as much as he let on.

“I was thinking,” Tony whispered back. “We’re in school now, but the calendar still says summer. We should go swimming one last time while it’s still August.”

“That’s what you were thinking just now?” Larry said. “You’re ridiculous. But sure. I wouldn’t mind a late-season swim.”

“Groovy,” Tony replied.

“Yeah. Groovy,” Larry said. “Now shut up before we get in trouble.”

  
It was eleven o’clock on Saturday when Tony’s brother’s car pulled up in the driveway. Larry was not really a fan of Tony’s brother. His name was Ernie, he only grunted rather than spoke, and he was seventeen but looked forty.

“Don’t worry,” Tony assured his friend as he climbed into the backseat. “Ernie’s just dropping us off.” Ernie grunted in response, his huge, hairy arms gripping the steering wheel like a vise.

“Are we picking up Becky-Jo next?” Larry asked.

Tony seemed to start slightly. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, looking sheepish. “She couldn’t come. Said she had to help her dad clean out the garage.”

“What? That’s crazy. She probably just didn’t want to come. She’s been acting kinda weird lately.” Larry wondered what was really going on with their friend.

“Yeah,” Tony said, and they fell into a strangely awkward silence. No one spoke until the car started jolting uncomfortably underneath them and Larry realised they were on a dirt road.

“Hey, where are we going?” he asked.

“The lake,” Tony told him. “Where real men go to swim.”

“Oh.” Larry didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. “I’m not that much of a, uh, outdoorsy type. We normally just swim at the pool.”

Tony shook his head in dismay. “That’s so sad, Appleton,” he said. “I mean, what kind of a life is that? It’s a good thing you have me to look out for you.” They were pulling up then to a small, muddy — and, Larry mentally noted, empty — beach. “Come on,” Tony urged him, and they scrambled out of the car and watched as Ernie sped back onto the road, tires squealing.

Larry took the opportunity to take a look at their surroundings. Trees. Rocks. Dirt. He was unimpressed. “I’m unimpressed,” he said.

Tony laughed him off. “Come on,” he said again. “Let’s get in.” He yanked his shirt off over his head and sauntered over toward the dock.

Larry immediately felt self-conscious. Compared to Tony’s olive complexion and sinewy frame, he was pale and thin and soft, like a piece of dough that had been stretched out. And what was worse, Tony had chest hair. Real chest hair. He thought about asking Tony why they couldn’t just sit around and hang before they jumped in, but he knew that would give his insecurities away. Slowly, as discreetly as possible, he removed his shirt. Something about it felt strange, like he had just set some cosmic force in motion. He walked robotically to the dock’s edge and stared out at the horizon. He was just about to take a deep breath and jump into the frigid water when he felt himself being pushed from behind.

“Get in already!” Tony cried. Luckily, Larry did have a pretty good sense of balance, and he just stopped himself from falling in, arms flailing at his sides. He heard Tony laughing.

“Yeah? You want me to get in? I’ll get in.” Larry smirked impishly at his friend before somersaulting over the edge. He was small, and the splash he created was not that impressive, but he did manage to get Tony prematurely wet.

“Now what are you waiting for, Novello?” he called.

“I’m gonna get you for this, Appleton!” Tony growled jovially. The splash his body made when he hit the water was probably three times the size of Larry’s. Within seconds, the two boys were splashing, tackling, and rough-housing so much they could barely actually see each other. Larry felt his anxieties drip off of him with the rivulets of lake water.

It was perhaps an hour later that Larry finally felt exhausted. He wasn’t used to this kind of rough play, and his breathing was growing a bit ragged. Tony seemed aware of this and backed off a bit, and things settled into an easy calm, the green water glinting in the sun.

“Okay,” Larry said in between gasps. “I admit. This was more fun than the pool.” He had barely finished his sentence when Tony kissed him.

It lasted for only a second, not even long enough for Larry to realise what was happening. By the time he had processed it, Tony had already swam a few feet away, his eyes wide and his mouth pointing downward in one diagonal line. “Sorry,” he said. “Jesus.”

All of a sudden, Larry felt something opening up in his chest. In a way, it was a similar to the feeling he got just before one of his “nervous attacks,” as his parents called them. His insides felt heavier. It was not really a pleasant sensation, but he still felt the urge to lean into it, to let it envelop him. He finally realised he should probably say something. “Is that why you brought me out here, Novello?” he joked, because that was all he could think to do. “To try and seduce me?”

Tony squinted at him slightly, trying to read his face, before his mouth finally slanted upwards into a half-smile. “Maybe,” he said, the hint of a dare in his voice.

That was all it took. Before either of them could blink, Larry had shot straight for Tony, and they were kissing again. This time it felt good, though physically the sensation was foreign and awkward. Larry suddenly recalled a time he’d been to Kenny Bluehorn’s birthday party in the seventh grade. As a result of some party game or other, Kenny had revealed to some of the guys that he and his male cousin had once kissed each other on the lips so they could practice for when they had girlfriends. Larry had been obsessed with this image for months later. He had never heard of boys kissing boys like this before. It had sounded dangerous and fun, but he never thought he would actually do it. And now here he was. And it was fun. But it was also dangerous.

“Why are we doing this?” he suddenly asked, pulling back from his friend. The nerves were kicking in for real now.

Tony took a moment to catch his breath before he responded. “Why not?” he said.

Larry bit his lip. As maddening as it was, he couldn’t explain his reasons for worrying. He just suddenly had a bad feeling about this. At the same time, though… they were having fun. They probably wouldn’t do this again. He didn’t want to ruin it. He shrugged, betraying the pit in his stomach, and leaned back in.

“If you wanted,” Tony said instead of kissing him, “we could take our trunks off.”

Larry froze. He knew he was pretty naive about these things, whatever they were. But being naked with someone — even a guy and a buddy — felt like it would be crossing an important line of some kind. He knew he couldn’t do it. He also knew he was insanely curious and would be agonising about this for a long time yet.

“I think I need to be alone for a minute.” The words came before his mind caught up with him. He was still thinking about Tony and what the rest of his body would look like. But he began trudging in underwater-slow-motion towards the shore.

“Larry, wait,” he heard Tony say behind him. “I’m sorry, I know I probably freaked you out. I didn’t mean… we don’t have to do anything.”

“It’s okay,” Larry called back to him. “I just need to think for a minute.”

  
He sloshed back onto dry-ish land and hiked up a nearby dirt path to find a boulder to sit on. When he found one, out of view of Tony, he sighed and flopped himself down. “What the hell is going on?” he said aloud to himself. A bird chirped overhead in reply. “Thanks, but that doesn’t really help,” Larry told the bird. It stopped chirping as if it understood.

Larry liked Tony a lot. He was funny and daring and didn’t care much what other people thought of him, which was something Larry could hardly comprehend. He was also, he admitted, very handsome. Lots of girls at school said so. And he might have even thought so himself before they said it. For a moment, he felt proud that he’d kissed Tony, when — as far as he knew — none of those girls had, not even Trudy Ashworth.

Then a new thought hit him that just made him a little queasy: What if Tony had kissed other guys? What if this was just a habit of his Larry didn’t know about? Maybe he’d brought other guys to this very lake. Maybe some of them had taken their trunks off. He was suddenly feeling very hot. But why was this idea bugging him so much? Was it because of what that might say about his friend? If Tony did this sort of thing all the time, then it couldn’t be thought of as just playing anymore. It would mean he was a homosexual. Was that what was bothering him?

No, he decided after a moment’s reflection. He didn’t much care if Tony was a homosexual. That was none of his business. What he did care about was the attention. If he was just another guy Tony had done this with, then he was insignificant. Just like he was in all other areas of his life. But if this was a new experience for both of them, then maybe Tony was as worried about it as he was. Maybe something about him had changed something for Tony. That was what he needed, he realised. He needed to be someone who changed things for someone else.

He was almost ready to face Tony again. He had made up his mind not to kiss him or touch him in any way after he went back. It was best to just let this be what it had been, and not take it any further. But first… he let his mind wander back to what would happen if they did. He was fumbling at the drawstring on his shorts when Tony came ambling over, his sheepish look back on his face. Larry quickly stood up and tried to look “natural.”

“Hey,” Tony said.

“Hey.”

“Man, I am so sorry about what just happened. I know that wasn’t very cool.” He rubbed the back of his neck, which made his wet black hair stand out like a shelf in the back. He looked so stupid all of a sudden. Larry took a minute to collect his thoughts.

“Have you ever done anything like that before?” he finally asked. “With a guy, I mean?” He tried to make it sound like he wasn’t dying to know.

Tony stared at the ground. “Yeah,” he said.

Larry felt suddenly crushed. He thought he might cry, which would really be the absolute worst thing to do in this situation. “Oh,” was all he said.

“Can we sit down?” Tony asked. “I’ll explain if you want.” Larry nodded, and the two boys hauled themselves up onto the boulder, Tony’s knees drawn in towards himself, Larry’s legs dangling off the side. “Last summer, just before we moved here, I got into some trouble. There was a boy a couple years older than me that I used to walk to the bus with. Sometimes my parents weren’t around and I’d just go to a friend’s house. Well, this kid invited me over one afternoon. His name was Scott, and he was one of those real WASP-y looking guys. Short, blond hair, blue eyes, and all. I thought he was cute, but I wouldn’t have dared say so.”

Larry coughed, startled by how boldly Tony was saying all this. “You… you were attracted to him?” he said dumbly.

“Boy, was I ever,” Tony laughed. “But he was in high school and I thought he’d beat the shit out of me if he found out I was queer. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. So he invited me over, right? And it was weird because he was older, and I didn’t know how to hang with guys his age, besides I guess my brother, and he’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. So I’m just standing around ‘cause I don’t know what to do, but we just start talking. I don’t even remember what about. We just sat on his bed and talked. And then I guess one thing led to another and… anyway, we got caught. His mom. And she told my mom, and she was real upset. She thought it happened against my will. She didn’t know I wanted it to happen. But, well… that’s why we moved.”

Larry sat in shocked silence for a long time. He had never heard anything like this before. Sure, he knew about homosexuals now, but that was a distant concept, the kind of thing his father would mutter about hearing on the news and his mother would say, “Not in front of the children, Walter.” This was nothing like that. This was real.

Finally, he spoke, but he wasn’t proud of what he said: “But that’s the only other time, then?”

Tony looked at him strangely for a moment. “Yeah. That’s the only other time.”

Larry nodded. Silence. Then, “I’ve never… I mean… well, I’ve never even kissed a girl, let alone a guy.” He could feel himself blushing and hated himself for it. “I’ve never told anyone that. I’ve been out with girls, but I never kissed anyone in my life. Before today, I mean.”

“Really?” Tony whistled. “Can’t believe I have the honour of being your first kiss, Appleton.” He started to laugh, but then frowned suddenly. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. We don’t have to ever mention this again.”

Larry nodded again, slowly. “I’m really confused,” he confessed.

Tony flicked a wet blade of grass off his calf. “What do you mean, confused?” he asked.

“I mean… what happened today… I… well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.” He thought he might never be able to look Tony in the face again after this. “But what does that mean? Does that make me a…”

Tony shrugged. “Nah,” he said. “I think I’m the only faggot here.”

 _Faggot._ The word triggered another memory in Larry’s mind, of being taunted by bullies in elementary school. Maybe… no. “I guess it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Larry agreed. “It was just something that happened.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “We don’t have to talk about it, like I said. It’s probably better for you if we just forget about it.”

 _I don’t know if I want to forget_ , Larry thought.

“Probably better for both of us,” Tony added more firmly, as if their shared experience earlier had given them telepathy.

“Okay,” Larry said. He felt sick and miserable, and was only making a half-hearted attempt to hide it. “I wish I brought my camera,” he said suddenly.

“How come?” Tony asked, looking relieved for a change of subject.

“I just want to remember what you look like right now,” Larry said. It was stupid and he knew it.

Tony sighed. “Larry,” he said. “I like you so much. I guess you deserve to know that. But you’re not like me. I messed up today. Let’s not talk about it again so we can stay friends.”

“Okay,” Larry said again.

  
Tony wasn’t in school on Monday. Larry felt a little panicky, but Becky-Jo said she’d seen him Sunday night and he was legitimately sick. Sick was no fun, but not the worst reason for him to stay home.

“He told me everything, you know,” Becky-Jo said at lunch.

Larry shook his curly head, startled out of his thoughts. “Who? What?”

“Tony told me everything that happened at the lake on Saturday,” she said. “He said not to tell you that I know, but I’m telling you so you’ll stop looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a mopey idiot. Now snap out of it before I throw up.”

Something occurred to him then. “Wait. Did you know Tony was…?”

“Gay? Yeah,” Becky-Jo said. “He didn’t even have to tell me. I can always tell.”

“What does that even mean?” Larry said. “How?”

“You know my older brother Jeff who moved to San Francisco? He’s gay,” she explained, as if that cleared anything up at all.

Larry looked at her skeptically. “Okay,” he said. “Is that guy gay?” He pointed at a lanky senior with already impressive sideburns.

“No,” Becky-Jo said confidently.

“How about him?” Larry asked, pointing to the already rising star of the freshman class, Bunky McDermott. Bunky was dressed in a three-piece corduroy suit and tie for absolutely no reason at all, and no one was questioning it.

“Nope,” Becky-Jo said. “Just annoying.”

“How about me?” Larry asked, finally getting to the real point of all this.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “If there ever was a homosexual in this world, you’re the homosexualest.”

“What?! Are you serious?” Larry felt a stirring of real panic for an instant.

“No, stupid,” she said, and flung a spoonful of peas at his head. “I was kidding.”


	4. Twelfth Grade: Don't Bring Me Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senior prom is around the corner, and Larry has his sights set pretty high.  
> Inspired by the stories of Bunky McDermott, most notably in S6 E11 The Sunshine Boys , and the fact that nobody calls someone a "little tramp" just because they were valedictorian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeszfFvSJQY
> 
> Another warning for teen sexuality (just discussions of)

“Don’t even THINK about asking me to the prom!” Sarah Casey spat, her perfectly manicured finger extended accusingly. She clacked away on her white heeled boots before Larry could react. He stood there, lunch tray in hand, mouth fallen open in shock.

“Damn,” Becky-Jo said, shaking her head. “You’ve really hit rock bottom, Appleton.”

“What did I ever do to Sarah?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t think it’s anything you did. It’s just your energy.”

“My what?” Larry still hadn’t become fully unfrozen from the shock of what had just happened.

“Let’s sit down, kid. I’ll do my best.” Becky-Jo plunked herself into one of the few available cafeteria seats. Larry very slowly lowered himself down across from her. “Look,” she said, her mouth already half full of turkey sandwich. “Don’t take this the wrong way. You know I love you. But sometimes you can be a little… intense. It brings people down a bit, you know?”

“Intense, how?” Larry asked. This was news to him. He wasn’t very good at reading other people’s opinions of him, except for when they used handy labels, like “geek” and “pansy.”

Becky-Jo stared at him skeptically. _“Please,_ ” was all she said.

“What?”

She sighed. “Remember freshman year? Remember Tony?”

Larry instantly knew his face was bright red. “Of course I remember Tony. I still see him every day.”

“Remember how you guys messed around one time and you started having a meltdown and then Ronnie York said the word ‘fruit’ in your general vicinity one time and you ran out of school and hid behind a tree until 6th period?”

“We didn’t ‘mess around,’” Larry spluttered. “And it wasn’t Ronnie, it was Randy.”

“You messed around,” Becky-Jo said. “Lots of teenage boys do it. Hormones and all that. It doesn’t mean anything. To most people.”

“The York twins each weigh about twelve of me. I thought he was going to beat the shit out of me. And that was three years ago now.”

“Okay,” she conceded. “That’s true. But remember last month when you threatened one of the teachers because she questioned your grammar on a homework assignment?”

“I did NOT threaten her!” Larry shouted, a little too loudly. A couple of people at neighbouring tables craned their necks to look. He lowered his voice. “All I did was suggest that she learn a little more about the English language if she intends to continue teaching it.”

“You called her a moron and said you would personally see to it that she was out of a job. And that was Mrs. Lewis… she’s a sixty-two-year-old widow.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I was there.”

Larry chewed meditatively on the end of his fork. “Okay,” he admitted. “I guess I can see what you mean. I take things a little too seriously sometimes…”

Becky-Jo rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Just a bit.”

“…But I don’t see why that’s any reason to just insult me out of the blue like that,” he added. “I haven’t even spoken more than two sentences to Sarah Casey in my life. She has no reason to hate me that much.”

“Your reputation obviously precedes you.”

“My reputation of being, as you say, ‘intense’?”

“That’s part of it, yes,” Becky-Jo said. “Another part is the fact that you’re _secretary_ of the chess club, you requested to take home ec instead of shop but still burned everything you tried to cook, and the only award you’ve won is fifth place in the poetry contest. Face it, Larry… you’re a dork, and you’re not even good at it.”  
He knew she was half-joking, but it did sting a little anyway. “Well, maybe if this school had taken my advice and started a photography club, I would’ve won more awards by now,” he said. “I’m good at photography. I’m passionate about it. I don’t have to be good at the social side of things.”

Becky-Jo nodded and pressed her fingers to the back of Larry’s wrist. “I know,” she said. “You’re the best. Unfortunately, this is high school. Nobody cares unless you’re good at sports or sex.”

“How would anyone know if I’m good at sex?”

“Uh… that’s precisely my point.”

Larry frowned. “Well, I still have a shot at going to prom,” he said. “Bunky’s gang are going as a group, and I think they might invite me to go with them.”

Becky-Jo’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to prom with Bunky McDermott?”

“I’m not going with him. I mean, he’s not my date.”

“If he was, I’d be a little jealous,” Becky-Jo admitted. “He’s started to grow on me this past year.”

“I’ve noticed,” Larry said, a little more bitterly than he intended. He didn’t know why he was getting so bent out of shape already. It was probably bad, but he didn’t like the idea of his friends being friends with each other. Especially Bunky and Becky-Jo.

“Well, calm down,” she said. “I’m not gonna steal him.”

Larry rolled his eyes dramatically. “Will you stop that?” he said. “I hate it when you get like this.”

“I’ll bet Bunky is good at sex,” she said with a smirk. She promptly finished off her milk in large gulps, then stood up with her tray. “Give that some thought, Larry. You might learn something from this new pal of yours.”

“Hey, Muffy!” Larry called amiably across the hall.

Muffy Sedgwick froze and squinted at him from beneath her brick-coloured beret as if unsure of who or what she was looking at. After a moment, her face finally relaxed, though she still didn’t smile. “Oh,” she sighed. “Hi, Gary.”

“It’s Larry,” he said, undeterred. He crossed the hall from his Spanish classroom to meet her. “You’re going with Bunky’s group to prom, right?”

Muffy glanced up at the clock on the wall behind him. “Probably,” she said. “Why?”

“Oh, well…” Larry tried not to show how lame he felt. “I was just sort of wondering, you know, because I’ve been hanging with you guys sometimes lately, and I don’t have a date to prom… I mean, not that I’ve asked anyone, I just haven’t bothered…” He had in reality asked 12 girls already and been rejected as many times. More, in fact, after the incident with Sarah earlier.

“Are you asking me to prom?” Muffy asked suddenly, taking a step back with eyes wide.

“No! No, no, I’m not,” Larry assured her. “I was actually just wondering if I would be, uh… if I would be considered a part of that group. With all of you.”

Muffy smirked a little at that. “You’re going to have to talk to Bunky,” she said. “But I’m sure he’d love to have you. You know how he is.” And with that, she brushed past him, nearly knocking his small stack of textbooks out of his arms.

She had a point. He did know how Bunky was: infuriatingly unreadable. Sure, at times he put on a good show of being the gregarious host, the charming leader, the fun-loving ringmaster. On those days, he acted happy to see Larry in the same way that Larry was happy to see Spot, the family dog, in the first few moments when he got home from school. At other times, Bunky could be cold, bristly, aloof. Sometimes even cruel. And then there were those rare moments… Larry almost didn’t dare admit it to himself. All he knew was that every so often he and Bunky would make eye contact and suddenly there was a feeling like static electricity in the air. And Larry had only felt that with one other person.

“Hey, Appleton,” Tony’s voice sounded practically in his ear.

Larry spun around. “Novello,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Tony smiled thinly at him, the only kind of smile Larry had seen from him in a long time. “It’s goin’ okay,” he said. “Are you going to prom with anyone?”

For some reason the question made him almost angry. “No,” he said. “Well, maybe… with, you know, a whole group.”

Tony nodded. “You mean Bunky and them.”

“Yeah.” God, why was this still so awkward?

There was a strange look on Tony’s face now, though Larry couldn’t bear to look at him for too long. “I don’t want you to get mad,” Tony said slowly. “But those people are jerks.”

Larry gritted his teeth. “Nah,” he tried to say casually. “They’re okay.”

“No,” Tony said. “They’re jerks. I hate watching you try so hard to impress people who are just gonna treat you like dirt.”

“Then why don’t you do something about it?” Larry felt slightly sick. He didn’t even know what he was saying. “If you’re so worried about me.”

Tony stared, his jaw locked shut. “Larry,” he said softly after a while. “You know why.”

Then the worst possible thing happened. Larry felt himself starting to cry. Right on the school lawn at three in the afternoon. “Aw, shit,” he heard Tony say. He said nothing for fear of what his voice would sound like. After a moment, he watched Tony’s shoes walk slowly away through the dark green grass.

There were many things Larry didn’t understand about his classmates. One was how quickly they seemed to move from boyfriend to boyfriend or girlfriend to girlfriend or crush to crush in a matter of days. They would break up or get rejected, feel sad for a minute or two, then forget about it and be all about somebody else instead. Larry couldn’t do that. Even when he developed new feelings, it didn’t feel like moving on. It just felt like a new layer of bandages over the original heartbreak.

He missed Tony terribly. Sometimes he fantasised about things that were really bad, like about getting a life-threatening illness just so that Tony would worry about him enough to spend time with him again… and maybe even touch him. He loved the idea of being taken care of and fussed over. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could talk about with other guys, though. He listened, uninterested, while they all talked about their girlfriends and their often rather aggressive sexual fantasies. Then he went home and thought about someone gently putting a damp cloth to his feverish forehead.

Of course, he thought about sex, too. He was eighteen, and he was aware of the school gossip about who had and hadn’t done it, and at this point it seemed like most of them had. Larry had still only done anything beyond holding hands with one person. Almost four years ago. And it was a boy. The experience had left him feeling confused and rejected and with a strange new sense of loathing toward his own body. Then, months later, he had been going for one of his moody walks alone while his family was camping, and hit his foot against a metal box on the forest floor. Inside were several pornographic magazines. They terrified him. He had never seen porn before and he found the images grotesque and disturbing. If that’s what sex is like, he thought, I don’t think I ever want to try it. At the bottom of the box, though, was one magazine that didn’t have any of these frightening pictures. It was just softly lit photos of men in various stages of undress, along with articles on various topics like music and fashion. Larry liked music and fashion. He kept the magazine, rolled up and stuffed down the back of his pants to hide it from his parents. It was still in the chest under his bed now, three years later, but not for the music or fashion.

It was only a few months ago that he had begun to suspect that there was someone else like this at school, besides him and Tony. He wouldn’t dare voice this theory, not even to Becky-Jo, but he had been wondering about Bunky for a long time… and then the breakthrough happened. Larry had been standing guard while Bunky and his friends did some light shoplifting and had overheard something he knew he wasn’t meant to hear.

_“For a thousand dollars, would you have sex with a guy?” Cliff asked jovially._

_“A thousand dollars? Hell, I’d do it for free if he was pretty enough,” Bunky replied._

That was it, but it was enough for Larry. The mild hero worship he had toward Bunky had gone all the way to full-blown lovesickness in the space of ten minutes. He made it his solemn vow to become either pretty enough or rich enough by the end of senior year. And here it practically was. If they went to prom together, even in a big group, it could even be his big chance.

He couldn’t quite get over what Tony had said, though. “Those people are just gonna treat you like dirt.” Well, so what if they did? Tony didn’t have much room to talk, anyway.

“Noogie, the phone is for you,” Elaine’s voice called through the curtain that had temporarily replaced Larry and Billy’s door. The door had been busted off its hinges by Billy after he’d lost a lacrosse game.

“Thanks, I’m coming,” Larry said. He knew it wouldn’t be, but hoped anyway that it was Tony calling to make up. Instead, he got Becky-Jo’s voice at a pitch and speed that suggested she’d been drinking too much of her dad’s coffee again.

“We’re in,” she said without greeting.

“Uhh… hi? In where?” He could barely hear over the sounds of Elaine practising piano, Spot barking at passing cars, and Nancy teaching some kind of schoolyard chant to four-year-old Kimberly.

“Bunky’s prom party. We’re both invited.”

“Huh?” Since when did she know these things before he did? “Says who?”

“Buffy. No, wait. Fluffy. She said Bunky wanted both you AND me to come. Isn’t that funny?”

Larry frowned distractedly at one of the kids who’d just bumped his shoulder on the way out the door. “Funny, yeah,” he said. “How come they told you this and not me?”

“Aww, is someone jealous?”

“No. It’s just weird because you don’t even hang out with those guys.”

“Aww… Larry…”

He sighed. “Just quit stealing my thunder for once, alright, Rebecca?”

He expected her to give some witty reply, but her end of the line was quiet. Finally, when it had definitely become awkward, she spoke. “Larry, do you… do you like Bunky? I mean. You know what I mean.”

The question sank in like a stone. “I’m not talking about this on the phone,” he said, then realised what that implied. “I mean…” He lowered his voice. “It doesn’t really matter. Even if I did — and I’m not saying I do — it wouldn’t go anywhere.”

“So you do.” Becky-Jo, though still on a caffeine high, sounded disappointed.

“I didn’t say that. And actually, I’d appreciate it if you would not jump to conclusions like that. You’ve been joking about me being… like that… for years now without the slightest encouragement from me.” He took a deep breath. He thought he might be getting a headache. “And I’m not, okay? Once and for all.”

Another pause. “Okay,” she said finally. “I believe you.”

He wasn’t sure he could say the same.

Three weeks later, Larry slammed the phone down on the receiver and snatched up his car keys. “Careful, Larry,” his mother warned as he made a beeline for the front door.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said irritably. “Beck still won’t answer the phone and this party starts in—” he looked at his watch — “twelve minutes. I’m gonna go drive by her house and if she’s not there, I’ll just have to go without her.”

“You don’t even have five seconds to give your mother a kiss?” she asked, teasingly, but Larry thought he detected some hurt in her voice. He froze, blushing, with one foot out the door. “Come here, you,” she said, and playfully covered one cheek in kisses — “Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!”

“Mom,” Larry said, pulling away half-heartedly. “Calm down, will you?”

Ignoring him, she hugged him tightly to her chest. Larry was extremely conscious of the fact that she was getting flour from her apron on his suit and that it would never come off. He forced himself to stay silent on the matter.

“Ohhh, when did my little boy get so big?” she squealed, a bit self-parodically.

“Never,” Larry reminded her. “I’m five foot four.” They both chuckled, but he felt a slight pang of guilt that he hadn’t been spending as much time with her for the past few years. He loved his mother, but lately he’d been preoccupied with things she could never know about. He still saw her every day, but at the same time he missed her. “I have to go,” he said. “I’ll see you late tonight. Or in the morning… you don’t have to stay up and wait for me.”

“Am I supposed to take that to mean you have some kind of secret plans into the wee hours of the morning? No, I think I’ll stay up, thank you.” She smirked. They both knew he wasn’t going to get into any trouble. He was nowhere near cool enough for that.

“Bye, Mom,” he said.

“I love you, Larry,” she said. It wasn’t something the Appletons told each other often.

“Bye,” he said again, nodding, and let the door swing shut between them. His heart felt strangely heavy. He walked out to the driveway where his hideous car sat waiting for him. Christ, he hated that car. He got in, put the key into the ignition, and… nothing. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he said out loud to no one. The car gods, maybe.

By the time he got on the road, the party was set to start in two minutes. Obviously, he was going to be late. He wasn’t sure how late was considered “fashionably late,” but he figured he was on the borderline already. He pulled up to Becky-Jo’s house at 5:08 and dashed up to ring the doorbell.

A tired-looking Mr. Quinn answered the door. “Hello,” he said. “Can I help you, son?”

“Yes, sir,” Larry said. “I mean, I hope so, sir. Is Becky-Jo here?” Larry had never actually been inside Becky-Jo’s house, or met her dad in person. They just didn’t have that kind of a friendship. Normally he would just pull up to the curb and wait for her to come out.

“Well, no, she left about an hour ago, I’d say,” Mr. Quinn said slowly. “Something you needed from her?”  
Now this was an unexpected turn of events. “She left? Did she say where?” Larry bit his lip. What was that girl up to?

“She went to a party with a young fella by the name of… what was it… Bucky? Binky?”

_“Bunky?”_

“Maybe… it was something like that, anyway. Strange name. Nice kid, though.”

Larry was running back to his car before Mr. Quinn had finished speaking. “Thank you! Goodbye!” he called over his shoulder. “Uh, sir!”

When he arrived at Bunky’s house, the party was in full swing. Meaning a bunch of kids were sitting around Bunky’s living room playing Truth or Dare. He’d always figured this was more of a post-prom game, but Bunky had insisted prom after-parties were “so not with it.” So here they were, playing Truth or Dare at five-thirty in the afternoon. He scanned the room for Becky-Jo and spotted her sitting with her legs folded under her, right next to Bunky himself.

“Applegate!” a voice called. It was Cliff. “Just the man we’ve been waiting for!”

“Fluffy was just about to make up a dare for Bunky,” Buffy explained as people shuffled around to make room for one more person. Larry wondered how long this party had actually been going on. He was pretty sure he could smell alcohol.

Once he was seated, Fluffy gave a devious glance around the circle and said, “I dare you to kiss a guy in this room. But you have to pick who. And it can’t just be a peck on the cheek. I mean a real mouth kiss. You have to be kissing for at least twenty seconds. We’ll time you.”

A chorus of “Ohhhh!”s had started up before Fluffy was even finished speaking. Larry’s face felt hot. He stared as hard as he could at the carpet. He had not been prepared for this the minute he first sat down. The general sentiment in the room was that two guys kissing was a particularly sick joke. He tried not to think about how many times he’d fantasised about doing a lot more than kissing with Bunky.

Suddenly someone’s hands were blocking his view of the carpet. “Hey… Larry,” Bunky’s voice practically purred. “You wanna make out?” Scattered nervous laughter. Oh god. No way was this happening. Larry’s head whipped up to look at Bunky, kneeling hunched over in front of him, but he couldn’t bear that for very long, so he glanced down at the floor again. Bunky’s hand found its way under Larry’s chin and lifted his gaze slightly. It was a surprisingly tender gesture, which made Larry panic even more. Everyone was staring at them! He turned his head to see Becky-Jo. Her expression was almost unreadable, wooden, her mouth a straight line… but he thought he could see a hint of worry in her eyes.

“What the hell,” Larry said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible. “Let’s do it.” Not exactly how he had planned their first kiss would go, but if he chickened out now he might seem even more gay. Beggars can’t be choosers. And maybe once they got this over with, Bunky would realise that kissing Larry was what he’d been missing out on all along. Yeah, right. He wiped his already sweaty palms on the sides of his pants and braced himself for whatever was to come.

“Go!” Fluffy called.

Okay, wow, Bunky was really going for it. Larry’s eyes stayed wide open in surprise for a few seconds as Bunky’s lips pressed almost… earnestly? Against his. Idiot that he was, he almost forgot to kiss back at first. The second he remembered, he felt Bunky’s hands grabbing at his curls and Bunky’s tongue pushing its way into his mouth. He figured it was best to go along with everything, that it would be less humiliating that way. It was just a joke, he tried to remind himself. He nearly lost his concentration when Bunky’s hands moved down his back, going from grabbing his hair to his shirt to his ass. He gave a little involuntary gasp, and then Fluffy called “Time!” amid hysterical laughter and they let go of each other in one fraction of a second.

Larry tried to settle his breathing down, now that he didn’t have Bunky as a partial shield from everyone else’s eyes. Bunky winked at him, a ridiculous grin plastered on his face. “That wasn’t so bad, huh, Larry?” he said so everyone could hear. Larry had no idea what to say, so he said nothing. Bunky leaned in close again and lowered his voice to a barely audible mumble against the riotous laughs and whoops still sounding in the background.

“Cute ass,” he said, and moved back to his seat next to Becky-Jo, high-fiving Cliff and Griff on his way.

Great. So he’d finally got a chance to kiss the guy he’d been worshipping for months, and now said guy was mocking him in front of a group of rowdy teenagers. He struggled as much as he could not to show his embarrassment, but he could feel his face burning up anyway. At least he wasn’t going to cry. That would be fucking stupid. For a second, his eyes caught Becky-Jo’s. She was looking at him like he’d suddenly grown three heads. He looked away.

By some incredible stroke of luck, the game petered out before it was Larry’s turn. The girls had all swapped their prom dresses for less expensive outfits during the party, and it was time for them to swap back. They all flocked to the downstairs bathroom, including Becky-Jo. It occurred to Larry that he had no idea what her dress looked like yet.

“Hey, Appletree,” Biff said, suddenly standing uncomfortably close to him. His breath was terrible — you’d think rich kids could afford a breath mint. “Did Becky-Jo ever give you a blowjob?”

“I, uh… have to use the bathroom,” Larry said, and tripped up the stairs as quickly as possible.

He had only been in the bathroom for about twenty seconds when Bunky burst in. “Whoa!” Larry cried. “Do you mind?! I’m… _urinating!”_

As if he hadn’t heard him, Bunky shut the door behind him. Larry could feel his heart drumming like crazy, but this time from absolute terror. He knows. He could tell somehow. Of course he could. Something bad is going to happen to me now. He completely forgot all his hazy suspicions that Bunky could be like him. He was trapped and vulnerable and he was going to get hurt.

“Hey,” Bunky said, more quietly than expected. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Don’t freak out, okay?”

What was this? Another game? “Okay,” Larry said, trying not to sound as scared as he felt. He turned awkwardly away to do up his fly, that for some reason seeming more private than actually having his dick out. “What is it?”

It was a surprisingly small bathroom for such a big house, and Bunky’s legs were long. It only took him one and a half steps until they were almost touching. Larry was still thinking about the game of Truth or Dare. He felt a little nauseous again. Bunky’s cologne was a little too strong and really not helping.

“I heard maybe you’d given some guys a hand before. Is it true?” He was actually whispering now.

“A hand? With what?”

Bunky rolled his eyes. “You know.” He made a gesture Larry was all too familiar with but had not been expecting right at the moment.

“What? Are you asking me if I’m…”

“I’m not asking if you’re a fag. If you were, you would’ve reacted differently during the game.”

Ha! So it had actually worked! He relaxed about 0.5%.

“I’m just asking if… you know how it is, being a guy. I could even pay you.”

What??? “What???”

“Okay, maybe that’s a little too whore-ish.”

“Are you asking me to jerk you off for money?”

“Not for money. Forget that part.”

“Don’t you have a prom date? Isn’t that what they’re for? I mean, why would you come to me?” Part of him was thinking, Are you an idiot? This is basically what you’ve been dreaming of for the past five months!  
Bunky blinked at him in surprise. “I can’t ask any of these girls, man — they’re my friends.”

Oh. Larry gritted his teeth. “Well whatever rumours you heard about me… they weren’t true,” he said, careful to keep his voice even. “Sorry.” Why was he apologising?

“Hey, no worries, Larry. We can just forget about it, huh?” Bunky punched his shoulder, intending it to be a friendly gesture, but Larry had to remind himself not to flinch.

“Sure, whatever,” he said. “Now can we get out of here?” The whole hiding-out-in-a-crowded-bathroom-with-a-guy thing was really starting to depress him.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Bunky said, but didn’t move. “Actually, can I ask you one more thing? Totally different subject.”  
Larry sighed. “What?”

Bunky lowered his voice and leaned in slightly, which Larry really didn’t even want to have to deal with right now.

“Are you and the Quinn girl, like… doin’ it?”

He almost laughed out loud. Him and Becky-Jo? What the hell? Is that what people thought? “We’re—” he began, and he was going to say ‘friends,’ but suddenly he saw another opportunity here. It would definitely be lying, but he could clear it up with Becky-Jo later and it would probably be fine. “We’re together, yeah,” he said before he could change his mind.

“Oh, alright,” Bunky said. “I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought maybe you were. I just wanted to know if I should lay off or not.”

Lay off? Wait… oh my god. “Uh, yeah, well…”

“It’s cool. I’ll behave myself,” Bunky told him with a wink, and then Larry was alone again in the bathroom.

  
Larry arrived at the school an hour and a half later than the rest of the group. They’d left him at a gas station on the way there, and he’d spent a little time feeling sorry for himself before finally deciding to just walk. That would at least show them that he wasn’t that easy to get rid of. Or that he was pathetic and desperate. Whatever.

Along the way, it had started drizzling. His pants had been splattered with mud and his hair had deflated considerably. His feet were in agony. But he was here. He’d made it. He thought he might pass out.

He scanned the dance floor for any sign of Becky-Jo first, though. He needed to talk to her right away. Some ELO song was playing loud enough he thought he might be getting a headache, too.

“Oh my god, he actually showed up!” he heard either Buffy or Muffy cry, followed by a few chuckles. He knew they were laughing at him, but that was not really foremost on his mind at the moment. After searching the gym for another minute or two with no sign of Becky-Jo, he decided he might as well go clean himself up now that he was once again in the vicinity of a mirror and sink. He ducked out the door and headed for the nearest restrooms.

Just as he got there, he spotted her. It didn’t take much effort — she was walking out of the girl’s room and nearly bumped into him. She looked, if not disheveled, then recently and hurriedly sheveled. Bunky did look disheveled, and Larry could swear his arm tightened around Becky-Jo’s shoulders when they noticed each other.

“I need to talk to you,” Larry said, trying his best just to pretend Bunky wasn’t there.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not really in the mood to—”

“Now,” Larry demanded. “It’s important.”

His gut clenched as he watched her glance at Bunky, as if for permission, before saying, “Fine. But make it quick, okay? Let’s go.” She peeled herself free of Bunky’s grip, then dragged Larry with her into the chemistry lab a couple doors down.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Larry realised he couldn’t remember anything he’d rehearsed saying to her. Instead he found himself starting right in with, “So you’re fucking him now?”

“Oh, charming,” she spat back at him, leaning against a desk.

“Well?”

“So what if I am? Not really any of your business, is it?”

“It is my business.”

“Really? Why would it be?”

He screwed his eyes shut. “You know why.”

“No, I really don’t. See, I’m a little confused about which lie it is we’re referring to here. Is it the one about you and me — what was that — ‘fucking’? Or is it the one where you told me you didn’t have feelings for Bunky? That you were straight? Which one of those makes it your business?”

“What?” His eyes popped back open, allowing him to glare at her incredulously. He couldn’t muster much venom in his voice, though, when he spoke again after a moment. “You said you believed me.”

Becky-Jo bit her bottom lip. “Yeah,” she said. “I did say that. Because I thought you were confused and scared and I didn’t want to push you or hurt you. But frankly, I don’t feel a whole lot of sympathy anymore.”

“What, just because—”

“Because you told the guy you knew I liked to stay away from me because we were together? Do you know how that sounds? Jesus, I know you can be a little self-absorbed sometimes, but I never expected you to actually try to ruin my life!”

“It wasn’t like that. I only said that because I didn’t want Bunky to—”

“To know that you’re gay.”

It was silent for a while.

“Yes,” Larry said finally. It was the first time he had ever admitted it out loud.

Becky-Jo heaved a gigantic sigh. “And why didn’t you want me to know?”

He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. So she went on.

“You know, I’ve bent over backwards for years trying to let you know you could trust me, Larry. I know it’s not always safe for gay people. But I am safe! You know that! Why couldn’t you just trust me? I asked if you liked Bunky because I didn’t want to go after him if it would hurt your feelings. And you lied to me. And then you lied to Bunky, about me. I guess you figured I was ‘safe’ enough to pretend to screw, but not safe enough to be honest with me? Even after I’ve told you over and over again that _I don’t care if you like men! I’m fine with it!_ In fact, I probably would never have let us get so close if I had thought otherwise! I just—”

“I’m sorry,” Larry said, and Becky-Jo’s eyebrows flew upwards in surprise. He tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t pull away. “I am. It’s just that… well, I know you have a gay brother and all, but you still don’t know how it feels. You can’t. I haven’t told anyone. And even though I knew intellectually that you’d be okay with it, I was still so… scared. And tonight… you don’t even know the whole story.” He took a deep breath, knowing there was every chance Becky-Jo wouldn’t even believe him at this point. “Bunky cornered me in the bathroom at his house. He wanted to offer me money to give him a handjob. I said no, and that’s when he asked me if you and I were together. I thought he was still testing me to see if I was… and if I said yes…” He trailed off. “I’m so sorry, Beck. You’re my best friend.”

She stared at him for a long minute, then shook her head. He could see the shine of tears start to form in her eyes. “We can’t be best friends anymore, Larry,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Not after what you did. What you’re doing now. And you know what? I don’t think we ever were.” She turned to leave.

“Wait, I—”

“No. I’m not waiting anymore for you to be honest. I’m leaving.” And yet she stayed frozen for a minute more, one hand on the doorknob, her back to him. When she spoke again, Larry could tell she was really crying now. “I really hope you figure stuff out for yourself, Larry. Maybe get some help. Because this… this isn’t healthy.” She flung the door open suddenly and stepped out into the hall, letting it swing shut behind her. Not for the first time that night, Larry had been left alone. Not the first time, but definitely, definitely the worst.

  
Salutatorian. Fucking salutatorian. By one point. Larry was absolutely positive that Becky-Jo had only counted the pages in the pages in their history textbook so she could rub his face in it. She’d been acting so smug around him ever since she and Bunky had started humping each other 24/7.

“That’s still really impressive, Larry,” Tony assured him. “I’m lucky they’re even letting me graduate.” They’d tentatively begun talking again after Larry had called him for a ride home from prom and spilled his guts about the whole thing on the way.

Larry rolled his eyes. “You’re not that bad off. Maybe if you just applied yourself—” he teased, but instantly regretted it. He wasn’t sure if they were at a point where teasing was okay again.

Tony seemed to be okay with it, though. “Okay, but I’m still not one of the smart people like you and Becky-Jo,” he said. “I mean, you don’t see me going off to college or anything.”

“You could if you wanted to.” Larry felt a sudden surge of affection and suddenly wished Tony could go with him to Chicago in the fall. He knew he wouldn’t, even if he could, and anyway he was already set to move up in the auto garage he’d been working at after school.

“Nah,” Tony said, affecting a country drawl. “I’ll leave all that book-learnin’ to eggheads like you and Miss Valedictorian.”

“Will you stop bringing her up?” Larry groaned.

“Sorry. Fuck her. And fuck Bunky, too. What a creep. Looks like the kind of guy who likes to spy on girls in the bathroom while they’re taking a shit.”

“What? That’s disgusting.”

“I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em,” Tony laughed. “Anyway, they deserve each other. And neither one of them deserves you.”

Larry looked at him, startled. “Thank you,” he said lamely.

Tony shrugged, and then they both fell silent for a moment. Suddenly, Tony was pulling him into a crushing embrace. Larry resisted for only a second before resting his head on Tony’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of him, holding onto him just as tightly.

“Think I’ll always have a little bit of a crush on you,” Larry whispered.

Tony chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, “ditto.” He pulled back and brushed a curl out of Larry’s eyes. “But hey, listen… you’re gonna get out of here soon. Go to college. Become a famous photographer. Meet some total hunk. You’re gonna be fine, Appleton.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What about you, though? Hate to think of you pining away for the rest of your life here in Madison.” He nudged his arm with an elbow.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Hey, you’re not that great,” he said. “I’ll be fine, too. I got plans.”

Larry nodded. “I’ll remember you when I’m famous,” he said, completely straight-faced.

Tony grinned at him. “You’d better.”


End file.
